Despite its importance to economic growth and the evolution of market structure, the investment behavior of firms, industries, and countries remains poorly understood. This paper has several objectives. First, it reviews some basic models of irreversible investment to illustrate the option-like...

Perestroyka, introduced in the Soviet Union to reform the economy after the"period of stagnation"under Brezhnev, involves combining centralized planning with elements of a market economy. For it to succeed, certain micro and macro conditions need to be fulfilled. As far as micro conditions are...

Closed-end national index funds (NIFs of country funds) invest primarily in the stocks of the originating countries, such as Brazil, India, and the Republic of Korea. They are typically traded in the organized exchanges of industrial countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom....

The authors explore the effects on the terms of trade of regional economic integration. They show why it is an appropriate measure of the welfare effects of such integration, comparing it with the many ex post studies that base their conclusions on changes in the import shares of member and...

During the past two decades many economies have opened their retail sector to foreign direct investment, yet little is known about possible implications of such liberalization on the economies of developing host countries. Using firm-level data from Romania, this study examines how the presence...

The Argentine crisis witnessed, among other things, a deposit run, the suspension of deposit convertibility, and a"boom"in the stock market. The authors argue that this boom reflects the cost that depositors were willing to incur to get their money out of the banking system, in light of the...

To address questions about how stronger patent rights will affect India's pharmaceutical industry, the author simulates the effects of introducing such protection - as required by the World trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) - on market structure...

In a large cross-country sample of manufacturing establishments drawn from 188 cities, average exports per establishment are smaller for African firms than for businesses in other regions. The authors show that this is mainly because, on average, African firms face more adverse economic...

Drawing on evidence about industrial organization and market structure, the authors develop a computable general equilibrium model in selected industrial sectors with increasing returns to scale. They use this model to estimate the welfare gains Korea would realize from abolishing the import...

This estimated model of corn, sorghum, and soybeans markets (USAGMKTS) serves as the U.S. agricultural sector in a study of the effects of U.S. agriculture and macroeconomic policy on Mexico's agricultural sector. This model of U.S. corn, sorghum, and soybeans markets also includes U.S. markets...